In South Vietnam in the 1960s, a man burned alive.
The man had gotten out of his light blue Austin in a busy Saigon intersection. Doused with gasoline, he quietly sat down in the street in a meditative position. Then, calmly, he struck a match.
A cloud of fire reached away from him. His body withered and charred as the flames whipped across him. He sat perfectly still, meditating until he was nothing more than ashes in the wind.
His name was Thich Quang Duc, and he had burned himself alive. This is self-immolation, the ultimate sacrifice, and the most beautiful act of protest.
A Catholic dictator named Ngo Dinh Diem ruled South Vietnam in the 1960s. Diem destroyed brothels and opium dens, banned abortion and divorce, and killed adulterers. And with the aid of the US, Diem had started genocide against Buddhists.
Thich Quang Duc was a Buddhist monk. His fire was a protest against Diem, against Catholicism, against capitalism, against the system. His act made everyone stop for a moment, it made everyone in that intersection drop whatever the hell they were doing and stare at the burning man. Just maybe, they started to think it was time for some change.
The first lady of South Vietnam laughed and said, “I will clap hands at seeing another monk barbeque show”.
Burning himself alive was not the first thing Thich tried. First, he had given Diem a simple message, “Enforce a policy of religious equality”. Diem responded. Diem responded by clamping down on the city with martial law, rounding up Buddhists and closing pagodas.
Thich’s fire sparked a firestorm. Other Buddhist monks across the country burned themselves alive. Four Americans burned themselves alive to protest the Vietnam War, and were honored by the people of Vietnam.
We look back on this and what can we say? We can say it worked. Diem was defeated. The US was defeated in Vietnam. Or we can look back on it and say these people were insane, and they didn’t make a difference. Because nothing matters anyways.
In 1970, a Basque nationalist set himself on fire and threw himself on the Spanish dictator Franco.
A man in India set himself on fire in 1990, leading to a movement against discrimination.
In the 1990s students set themselves on fire in Korea to protest authority.
In 2003 six people set themselves on fire in the Czech Republic to protest everything.
You may have everything to loose or nothing to loose but your chains, but self-immolation is the greatest form of protest.
“I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think.... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.” –American journalist who watched Thich’s fire
